Gateway Financials Trend Down

On Thursday Gateway Inc. reported a loss of $114 million for the fourth quarter of 2003, and that it sold 526,000 computers, or 27% fewer from the same period of 2002. For the entire year, the company lost $526 million on revenue of $3.4 billion. Gateway has been losing money for three years, and has been reinventing itself into a consumer electronics company instead of a computer manufacturer. Besides cutting staff the past two years, Gateway has closed 194 stores, and has just 190 open now. Gateway said retail store traffic was “flat” during the holiday selling quarter in which other retailers reported traffic increases. “We were disappointed that we didn’t generate the traffic we really needed to,” said co-founder Ted Waitt during a conference call. “Clearly, we’re analyzing every aspect of our retail business. We’re looking at each store from a profitability standpoint.” The company didn’t break out financial results for its retail operation.